


all we have to give

by lilabut



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, a dash of angst, post S3 midseason finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5417735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/pseuds/lilabut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie returns, but moving on is not as easy as either of them have expected. As Ichabod struggles, Abbie tries to hold on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all we have to give

_So we plan for tomorrow as we live for today  
Like a flower we bloom, and then later fade away _

 

_Struggling Man,_ Jimmy Cliff

 

Behind her, the front door clicks shut resolutely, but quietly. Still, in the deafening silence that follows, it resonates.

 

Crane has not spoken a word for hours, not since those fragile moments when she had carefully unfolded herself from his arms. Her tears on his skin have since dried, her choked sobs faded. Crescent shaped marks that her fingernails have left on his sickly pale skin were probably nothing but pink dusting by now, all the ferocity with which she had held on to him merely another shadow of the past (her feet off the ground, her name – just _abbie_ then, not _leftenant_ – distorted by tears, lungs closed up, all of it too much; being alive again).

 

He shrugs off his coat now, stoically drapes it across the back of a chair.

 

She stands in a museum, once her home, now frozen in time. The cup of coffee she had rinsed the morning before she died, it still stands upside down on the counter where she left it to dry. That day's newspaper has not been moved an inch on the table. Scattered boots lay astray, in the same chaotic pattern as before. Abbie feels dead again, separated from herself, staring at her own life from the outside; like a ghost.

 

No dust has settled. Ichabod has kept the place clean, has kept the machine running. But he also maintained the facade. Dry tears burn in her tired eyes when realization dawns on her, cold fingers trailing along the edge of the table as though it belongs to somebody else.

 

This is how he kept her alive (just as he keeps alive the person he once used to be, and will never be again, with his clothes; out of time, out of place, yet a last tether of hope in a world so frightening).

 

As Ichabod moves towards the stairs, she finally ends the silence. _Why are you punishing me?_ Anger outweighs the genuine hurt that has settled deeply within her chest at his behavior, a sharp intonation to her words that roll off her tongue louder than intended.

 

Her question seems to freeze him in place, large hand hovering uselessly over the bannister. His shoulders rise up high, then fall limply back down in a resigned sigh she can hear from across the lifeless room.

 

She is truly surprised when he turns to face her, and in his features she can spot the heavy conflict. There, in the deep lines on his forehead, the tension in his jaw, the purse of his lips and the sharpness of his eyes, she can see that he struggles. What to reply, whether or not to answer her question at all. After all, he could just turn on his heels, disappear up the stairs, and this book would be shut forever. They could run from this, never mention it again. Just as they have done countless times before.

 

 

(his betrayal when he drew the map from his wretched memory, his promise of forged fates in vain. the undeniable hurt when he did not try harder to change her mind as she volunteered to stay behind in purgatory, leading his wife into safety. what changed between them when she killed his only son. the emptiness and disappointment when he shut her out, left her for months without so much as a farewell.)

 

 

He makes his choice. Takes a stand, this time. _I have lost everything_. One step forward. _Every friend or acquaintance I have ever had. The future I had envisioned for myself. I lost my wife, in more ways than just one. I was cheated out of being a father, lost the only child I ever had._ Another step forward. His voice is strained, and in his blue eyes, Abbie can see the past flicker. Obscured shapes and faces burning and melting away. Everything that haunts him is right in front of her. Then he stops, an arm's length away from where her feet seem glued to the floor. _All I had left was you._

 

(memories of a conversation in the woods. _we're not going anywhere. the thought of losing you_. a promise she never should have made.) A hint of accusation tints his words, and Abbie feels her fingers tighten angrily into fists, her knuckles pushing against the skin from beneath. Despite the fire that burns beneath paling skin, she remains silent.

 

_And then I lost you, too._

 

Long fingers fidget against his thighs. Drumming a nervous beat.

 

_That's no reason to act like this. You make it seem like I_ left _._ (she bites back the _like you did_.) _I saved your lives. You'd have done the same thing._ (the _you've done it before_ pulses between them, unspoken, but not forgotten. she remembers the poison as he gulped it down, remembers exactly how unexpectedly hard the thought of losing him had hit her back then, in the early days.)

 

Something burns up brightly in Ichabod's eyes, and when he retorts, his voice is louder, not quite a shout but enough to ripple through Abbie from head to toe. _And I should like to think you care for me enough to be upset by it._

 

The blow of his words knocks the air out of her lungs. All tension leaves her body in one rush of breath, arms heavy and limp, her lips parted.

 

As clearly as he stands before her now, towering and defeated, Abbie recalls her very last memory. The last fragment her mind had held on to before she passed from this world.

 

Before everything around her, before she herself melted away into shadow, she remembers Ichabod's face. Defeated, not unlike he looks upon her now. She remembers with sharp-edged clarity how his expression had almost changed her mind.

 

It had been but a look, but in those brief seconds, it had grown fingers. Claws that reached into her chest, dug deeply into her heart. So fiercely, pulling her away from the tree. It had cost her all the strength she could muster to turn away. There were so many things she had wanted to say in those precious moments they were granted to say _goodbye_ to one another. So many things.

 

But she never spoke them. Because, while it was her last chance, it was not the right moment to say them. Even if it was the last.

 

There had been so many nuances to his expression. Grief. Sadness. (love, undeniably). Disappointment. Fear. But what truly mattered then, what matters most now, was the one emotion that was absent: doubt. Not a shred of it.

 

She is alive again, reborn, awoken – she has no name for it.

 

She is back.

 

That he doubts her heart now... Abbie takes a tentative step forward.

 

Ichabod does not flinch away as she gradually breaches the remaining distance between them. His chest rises and falls calmly, just as her own breath now flows steadily through her lungs. The shift between them is palpable.

 

With sure fingers, Abbie cups Ichabod's face between her hands. She has to reach up high, the strain in her arms and back oddly familiar, yet she pays it no mind. Fingertips graze his ears, thumbs slips over cheekbones. He gazes at her, blinking only a miniscule amount of times.

 

_I'm not dead_ , she states, finally. The words are too loud given how close they are. But someone else's words ring in her ears so much louder, and she needs to drown them. They make her understand. _How does that feel? To know that you're alone now. Alone in this fight of yours. Alone in this world?_ Pandora's lilting voice echoes from her memory, from a moment when her hands had rested in the same place as now, when she had felt Ichabod convulse beneath her, slipping away slowly. Somewhere she could not follow him.

 

(he had followed her there, despite the crushing odds.)

 

How did it feel? To lose her? To be the _only_ Witness?

 

She had not felt alone. She had not _felt_ at all. But Ichabod had suffered through every second of her loss.

 

Abbie pulls him towards her deftly; it is a simple task, though, because she is met with no resistance. Ichabod bends to accommodate her wishes, and when their foreheads touch, his eyes soften. His skin is warm against hers, the fingers she has pressed into his cheeks mapping out every small wrinkle, every rise and fall. _I'm not dead_. This time, it is a delicate whisper. Reassuring herself just as much as convincing him that this is real. That neither of them is alone now, not anymore.   
  
When she kisses him it is not because she wants to.

 

She _needs_ to, to feel, to _make_ him feel. They both finally let go.

 

This is not what they are, Abbie knows it. A pestering voice in her head whispers it over and over. But there is no denying something has been there for a while, well hidden beneath the thick layer of the friendship they have built, the bond they tended to, the duties they proclaimed as theirs. Something wholesome and more, with no name of its own.

 

One of his hands finds the side of her neck where her blood pumps furiously, the other locks into place against the small of her back. Nothing fits between them now, not even their own fears.

 

She can not say exactly when it changed. Maybe it was always there, from that fateful, blood-tinted night they met. Maybe it grew along the way, mistaken for something different. Maybe it only blossomed after Katrina passed. They will never know. _He grows on you_. She suddenly recalls her own words, and a careful smile breaks across her face, lips curling against Ichabod's. He responds in kind, fingertips soothing through the hair at the base of her skull. In his arms, she shivers.

 

(for the first time in years, it is not out of fear or cold.)

 

It is there, and Abbie is ready to acknowledge that.

 

But it is not who they are right now, not what they _need_ to be. Dimly, she recalls something Ichabod had once told her. A rule they failed again and again, but one she still stands by, even after every stumble, every mistake. _Duty above all else._ There are a thousand possibilities for them to make it though the Tribulations, and infinitely more for them to fail. The luxury of taking risks is not one they can allow themselves.

 

 

But they can have this small moment, irrelevant in the greater scheme, the twisted game they are playing.

 

This is a promise, she thinks as they part quietly. A promise for a future.


End file.
